Marketplace Tech

Is LinkedIn ready for Black LinkedIn?

LinkedIn has a reputation for being all business, but that has been changing recently, especially in the last four months. Workers who are at home and trying to navigate racial upheaval in America are turning to LinkedIn to talk about race and activism, especially as it relates to work. Black workers say it’s great that these conversations are happening on the Microsoft-owned platform because so many executives and company decision-makers are on LinkedIn. Marketplace Tech host Molly Wood spe...

Automated test grading has moved way past Scantron bubble sheets

Every Monday this fall, we’re talking about technology and education, because many students, caregivers and teachers are getting a crash course in ed tech. Even before the pandemic, one way technology has been creeping into students’ lives is through grading. And we’re not just talking about those multiple choice bubble sheets that’ve been around for decades. The Educational Testing Service, which creates statewide assessments for K-12 students, along with higher ed tests like the GRE, has b...

Facebook expands its ban of QAnon on its platforms

Facebook announced this week it was taking down any pages or groups tied to the far-right conspiracy theory QAnon. Previously, the company had only removed content that encouraged violence. The outright ban is a big deal because, generally, Facebook has resisted policing any content on its platforms. So, will it work to slow the spread of baseless theories about a Satanic cult of pedophiles running the world? Amy Scott speaks with Travis View, who is the host of “The QAnon Anonymous” podcast...

Google and Oracle’s Supreme Court fight could affect the whole industry

The technology we use every day is built using thousands of lines of code — some of it written decades ago. Now, the Supreme Court is deciding when that code is free for others to use and when it is not. Back when Google was creating Android, the company decided to make it work with the popular programming language Java so it would be easier to make Android apps. But to do that, Google used Java code that is now owned by Oracle. Oracle sued, and several trials later, it’s in the Supreme Cour...

Amazon automation could be making some warehouse jobs more dangerous

Since Amazon first introduced robots into its warehouses six years ago, the company has seen staggering growth. And demand has only intensified during the pandemic as more people do their shopping online. But a new investigation by Reveal from the Center for Investigative Reporting finds that growth may be coming at a heavy price to workers. Injuries are on the rise, especially in facilities where robots are used. Amy Scott speaks with Will Evans, a reporter for Reveal who led the investigat...

Foreign election interference is finding plenty of places online to spread

The Russian group accused of meddling in the 2016 election was caught this month in another disinformation campaign. Reuters reports that the group posed as a news outlet publishing articles that attacked former Vice President Biden. They targeted Facebook and Twitter, yes, but also spread content on Gab and Parler, social media networks that attract right-wing users. Molly speaks with Camille Francois, chief innovation officer at Graphika, who helped research this effort. She says disinform...

Surveillance technology is not the way to get kids safely back to school

Every Monday this fall, we’ve been taking a look at education and technology during the pandemic. We’ve mostly talked about remote school, but today we’re going to talk about how schools and districts are using tech to try to monitor students’ health in the classroom. Even before the pandemic, some schools had used things like facial recognition to monitor students. Now, they’re adding QR codes, thermal cameras and spending potentially hundreds of millions of dollars in the process. Molly Wo...

Pandemics are as much about logistics as they are about public health

At some point, trying to manufacture and distribute a vaccine for a brand new virus, keeping track of who’s gotten it, where it’s going, how long it’s taking and how much you have, is a logistics and data problem — a big one. Enter Salesforce, whose whole job is organizing data. The company has introduced new products during the pandemic under the name Work.com. First, it was organizing employees returning to work. Then it offered it to schools as students went back. And now, it’s trying to ...

Targeted political advertising could change how and whether people vote

The Trump campaign sent targeted ads to Black people in 2016 to deter them from voting, according to an investigation published this week by Channel 4 in the U.K. The campaign denies this, but targeted digital advertising is a big part of political campaigns. So big that Google banned microtargeting in political ads; Twitter banned political ads completely. Facebook has not. How effective are targeted ads? If they can change a vote, should they be allowed? Molly speaks with John Deighton, a ...

Self-driving cars are still going to take a long time, people

The startup Luminar makes LiDAR, or Light Detection and Ranging technology,  which helps autonomous cars see the world around them. Now, Luminar is going public. It plans to enable autonomous driving on highwaysby 2022. It’s kind of like what Tesla promises with Autopilot, except less human intervention required. Molly Wood speaks with Austin Russell, CEO and founder of Luminar.

With schools online, software to catch students cheating is big business

It’s not only teaching that’s happening remotely for millions of students — it’s testing, too. And many colleges are using software to watch students take those tests. Big providers include Respondus, ProctorU and Proctorio. Some of them use webcams to track how often students move their heads or eyes or touch the keyboard. Anything out of the ordinary is flagged for teachers to review. Amy Scott speaks with Todd Feathers, who recently co-wrote a piece about a “rebellion” against this kind o...

Facebook plays whack-a-mole with foreign election interference

Facebook said this week it’s taken down several networks of fake accounts to guard against meddling in the U.S. election, the latest crop tied to Russian intelligence services. The company says those accounts on Facebook and Instagram could have been used to leak hacked documents. It also removed several inauthentic Chinese accounts that in some cases shared material related to President Donald Trump and former Vice President Joe Biden. Amy Scott speaks with Sarah Frier, a reporter for Bloo...

Can Oracle make it into the cloud computing big leagues?

Details of the proposed deal for Walmart and Oracle to take a stake in Chinese company TikTok are still unfolding. But what is clear is that part of what’s in it for Oracle would be a new customer for its cloud computing business. The company has just under 3% of the global cloud computing market, according to research firm Gartner. Compare that with Amazon Web Services, or AWS, at 45%. The next biggest provider is Microsoft, with an 18% share. Amy Scott speaks about cloud competition with E...

AI is reshaping the way we buy, sell and value homes

The housing market continues to defy gravity. Sales of existing homes rose more than 10% last month compared to a year ago, hitting their highest level since December 2006. It’s all about low interest rates and intense competition for available homes. And now, more than ever, people are relying on online platforms to search for — and even buy — houses. And that opens the door for artificial intelligence to play a bigger role, like using computer vision to create real estate listings based on...

The pandemic is putting electronic medical records to the test

To slow the spread of coronavirus, testing is essential — and not just getting a test, but getting the results back as quickly as possible. A shortage of the equipment and chemicals needed to perform the tests is part of the problem, but the country also lacks a robust electronic medical record system, which would allow information to be shared seamlessly. We wondered: How much is that slowing everything down? Amy Scott speaks with Julia Adler-Milstein, a professor of medicine at the Univer...

How constant surveillance puts protesters at risk

As Black Lives Matter protests continue around the country, police are using facial recognition and all kinds of other technology to arrest protesters and organizers. While, in some cases, the people arrested did commit crimes, after-the-fact arrests can have a chilling effect on free speech and lead to cases of mistaken identity. They also show us just how much surveillance is part of our lives. Molly speaks with Simone Browne, author of “Dark Matters: On the Surveillance of Blackness.”

America is lagging on climate change. Where is our innovative spirit?

This week alone in our changed climate: More than two dozen people have died in wildfires in Western states and more are missing. Forecasters predict life-threatening flooding from Hurricane Sally in the Gulf. And the foundations of two major Antarctic glaciers are crumbling, threatening dramatic sea level rise. Bill Gates is founder of the billion-dollar Breakthrough Energy Ventures investment fund. He tells Molly Wood that American innovation is still necessary if we’re going to meet U.N....

Gates: The U.S. isn’t helping get a COVID vaccine to the rest of the world

Discovering, manufacturing and distributing a vaccine will likely be the only way out of the pandemic, which has devastated the world’s economy. The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has been part of the effort to underwrite that work, including playing matchmaker between several pharma companies to manufacture billions of doses, even if they aren’t the eventual inventor. Molly Wood speaks with co-chair Bill Gates about his work on vaccine development.

Don’t lose sight of the proposed WeChat ban

We’ve been covering President Donald Trump’s proposed ban on the Chinese-owned TikTok. But the president is also proposing to ban the Chinese app WeChat. The administration says the apps expose American user data to China’s government, a possible national security threat. With WeChat, there is real concern about surveillance and censorship. But the app is indispensable for communication between people outside China and those inside the country. And it is equally essential for American busine...

Could a digital New Deal rewrite tech policy?

At this point, consumers, tech employees, even the CEOs of some big tech companies say there should be more regulation around online privacy, advertising and even disinformation. But what might that regulation look like? The German Marshall Fund think tank is pushing for an initiative called the Digital New Deal. It contains a bunch of policy proposals and would ideally create more transparency into how tech companies operate and question the incentives that push disinformation. Molly Wood d...

Medical tech is the new gold rush for investors during the pandemic

More and more people are are seeing their doctors at a distance during the pandemic. And this long-awaited shift to telehealth has investors interested. There was already a boom in biotech investing before COVID-19 hit. But WGBH’s Aaron Schachter has more on the latest investor push to put money into all kinds of ways to modernize medicine.

During the pandemic, social media can be an information lifeline for rural communities

One of the reasons it’s so hard to quit Facebook is that it’s actually become essential for information, support and connection. That’s especially true in small, rural communities where local news is mostly happening on Facebook and people are turning to the platform as a resource for information about COVID-19. But KUNC’s Adam Rayes reports from Colorado that divisiveness is creeping into groups meant to keep people updated.

Back-to-school season kicks off this week, but laptops are sold out

Turns out, the people who work at Facebook are fighting just as much as the rest of us

Facebook is feeling the pressure to deal with election disinformation. This week the FBI uncovered a new Russian propaganda campaign targeting the 2020 election. And Facebook announced it would block new political ads for a week before the election. So, how does it feel to work at Facebook right now? Molly speaks with Ryan Mac, a senior tech reporter at BuzzFeed. He says the company has an internal communications platform called Workplace, and it’s full of debate.

A platform-by-platform prescription for treating the disinformation disease

From QAnon to Russian propaganda campaigns to COVID-19 myths, social media is unquestionably the vector for increasingly dangerous misinformation. With just weeks left until the U.S. election, we wondered: If the platforms all agreed overnight that disinformation is a threat to society and democracy, what would change? Molly speaks with Joan Donovan, research director of the Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy at Harvard. First up: She said gaming Twitter should get a lit...

How autonomous carmakers can make their cars more accessible

Last month, we spoke with Haben Girma, a disability rights advocate, who told us self-driving cars could be an especially powerful tool. “Imagine the freedom, the independence,” she said. “I was talking to someone who works at one of these companies, and he said, ‘We’re a few years from releasing the car. Maybe 10 years from now we’ll think about disability access.’” So how are car companies approaching autonomy and accessibility, and couldn’t they include access for all from the ground up?...

Can social media help deprogram QAnon believers?

QAnon is gaining followers fast. Social media algorithms are putting QAnon posts in front of their users, QAnon is infiltrating GOP politics and, experts say, increasingly QAnon seems less like a fringe conspiracy theory and more like a cult. Molly speaks with Rachel Bernstein, an educator and therapist who is on the advisory board of the International Cultic Studies Association. She says most cult movements take hold in times of trouble.

Remote learning leaves schools with a problem: how to get everyone online

In the rush to get families online in time for distance learning, it’s Wi-Fi hot spots to the rescue. In the Ozarks, they’re parking school buses equipped with Wi-Fi routers for kids to use while sitting in the parking lot. Chicago is spending millions to give hot spots to individual families and also connect homes to broadband. But is this sustainable? And will there be any going back from Wi-Fi for all? Molly speaks with Christopher Mitchell, director of the Community Broadband Networks In...

Better diversity in venture capital investing might mean putting it in the contract

This week, a group of venture capital firms announced that they’re planning to make diversity a core part of their deals with startup founders. The 10 firms committed to including new standard language in the contracts, called term sheets, they make with startup founders. It’s a diversity rider that says that the company and lead investor will make “every attempt” to include a member of an underrepresented group as a co-investor. It’s not binding, but the idea is that it’ll create opportuni...

How to get clean air indoors when it’s barely safe to breathe outside

Good ventilation and airflow can help reduce the spread of viruses in shared indoor spaces. But during big wildfires, like the ones in California that are sending smoke across the United States right now, or in areas with high levels of everyday air pollution, bringing in air from the outside isn’t a good option. Experts say the unhealthy air from fires in California can actually make people more susceptible to COVID-19 because their lungs and immune systems get overtaxed. So better filtrati...

Rethinking indoor air to stop the spread of COVID-19

As we learn more about how COVID-19 spreads, it’s clear that air flow is a big deal, and that’s why masks are effective at slowing infection. That’s a problem for offices and commercial buildings and some homes, because over the last couple of decades buildings have less ventilation. Instead, they recirculate air to save energy by not letting that cooled or heated air escape. But these buildings also end up recirculating viruses, especially if heating and cooling systems aren’t paired with r...

What’s next in the Fortnite antitrust fight?

Epic, Apple and Google are in a feud over the game Fortnite. In mobile apps, whenever you buy a digital item, like an e-book, avatar skins or weapons, Google and Apple charge a 30% fee on that purchase. Recently, Epic started letting players buy in-app purchases on their credit cards so Apple and Google wouldn’t get the fee. Apple and Google both yanked Epic’s game Fortnite from the App Store and Google Play. Epic sued, saying these digital fees are antitrust violations. Molly Wood speaks wi...

Online political conventions could be a model for future conferences

The Republican National Convention starts Monday night. It’s expected to be part-virtual and part-in person. The Democratic National Convention last week was pretty much entirely virtual. It included a number of pre-produced speeches, some live elements and some long pauses and awkward transitions — but it was generally considered a success. And since these days all kinds of conferences and conventions are going virtual — events that are big moneymakers for organizers and cities — Molly wond...

Facebook shutting down QAnon accounts is a little too late

Facebook this week removed thousands of groups, pages and accounts on Facebook and Instagram belonging to the right-wing conspiracy movement QAnon. QAnon has maybe millions of followers who believe, among other things, that a satanist cabal of pedophiles is conspiring to bring down President Donald Trump. The group was identified as a possible domestic terrorism threat by the FBI in 2019, but a QAnon supporter recently won a Republican primary in Georgia, and Trump praised the group earlier ...

Public-safety apps might keep you informed. But are they good for the public?

Since March, the number of people downloading the safety-awareness app Citizen has doubled. Citizen gathers local reports from emergency scanners — crimes, fires, weather hazards, protests — and lets users upload video of what’s happening. It also recently added COVID-19 contact tracing to the app. Citizen says it keeps people safe and informed. But, like with Nextdoor, Ring and other safety products and services, there are fears of unintended consequences, like paranoia, surveillance, endan...

Mimicking birds and insects is the future of drones

Drones are a huge industry used in agriculture, construction, real estate, filmmaking and military surveillance. Since the pandemic began, they’ve been used to deliver packages and medical supplies, and some companies have even promised that drones could detect COVID-19 symptoms from afar. But in some ways, drones are still in the early stages techwise. Some engineers believe the best way to improve the tech is to copy nature. Marketplace’s Stephen Beard has been talking to the boss of Anima...

What sewage water can tell us about the spread of COVID-19

Testing for COVID-19 is still limited and way too slow to keep ahead of the pandemic. Now, dozens of cities and countries are turning to the sewers to try to figure out if COVID-19 is spreading in their communities. A Massachusetts-based startup called Biobot Analytics tests wastewater and raw sewage for the presence of the novel coronavirus. It started a free pilot project in June with hundreds of wastewater treatment facilities, and now some cities are starting to pay Biobot for regular mo...

We’ve got bigger problems in November than foreign disinformation

The Democratic National Convention starts Monday, kicking the run-up to the November election into even higher gear. Representatives from big tech companies met with officials from the FBI and Department of Homeland Security last week to coordinate responses to malicious disinformation campaigns on their platforms. Kimberly Adams speaks with Alex Stamos, the former chief security officer at Facebook, who now directs the Stanford Internet Observatory. He said COVID-19 “pre-hacked” the electio...

Turning video game tech into accessible tools

This week, we’ve been looking at disability and technology: where innovation is happening and where there’s work left to do to improve accessibility. That includes video games. Kimberly Adams talks with Steven Spohn, chief operating officer at AbleGamers Charity. He helped develop an adapter that lets gamers use their wheelchair as a controller for consoles or computers.

Online learning tools aren’t as accessible for students with disabilities

Remote learning this year is an ongoing challenge from kindergarten all the way to college. Much of the technology that connects students and teachers isn’t optimized for people with disabilities. We speak with professors around the U.S. to learn more about the tech that makes online learning less accessible for students with disabilities.

How the FCC regulates accessibility for new technologies

The Americans with Disabilities Act turned 30 this summer, but this year also marks a decade since the 21st Century Communications and Video Accessibility Act was signed. That law sets federal rules for things like streaming video, mobile browsers and teleconferencing software. Regulators at the Federal Communications Commission are in charge of making sure people follow that law, and they get help from the FCC’s Disability Advisory Committee. Kimberly Adams speaks with Brian Scarpelli, co-c...

Innovating for disability, because you have to

This week we’re using the 30th anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act to talk about technology and accessibility. Kimberly Adams speaks with disability rights advocate Haben Girma, author of “Haben: The Deafblind Woman Who Conquered Harvard Law.” Girma created a communications system for herself while she was at Harvard and says, “Disabled people constantly have to come up with our own solutions.”

The internet is everything. But is it accessible?

Recently, we spent some time digging into just how crucial internet access is during the pandemic. But even if you have access to the internet, many parts of it are still not accessible. The Americans with Disabilities Act turns 30 years old this summer. A lot of the tech that makes things convenient for some can be game-changing for people with disabilities, such as screen readers that help visually impaired people read websites or software that lets us type with our voice. But some produc...

It’s official: TikTok’s days in the U.S. are numbered

Late Thursday, President Trump signed an executive order, banning the social media app TikTok in 45 days. TikTok is owned by the Chinese company ByteDance and the administration says a Chinese company having access to Americans’ data is a national security threat. Trump also put a clock on WeChat, the popular Chinese texting app.  Kimberly Adams speaks with Shira Ovide, who covers technology at The New York Times, and she says this could have implications far beyond social media.

A federal judge mourning her son calls for increased data privacy

In July, federal Judge Esther Salas was deliberately targeted in her home in New Jersey. A gunman shot and killed her son and gravely wounded her husband. This week, Salas released a statement, speaking about how personal information, like her home address, was available online, making it easy for her attacker to find her. The judge called for better laws to protect the personal information of federal judges and their families, but the internet can make it relatively easy for anyone to track...

Using startups to improve media diversity

With popular attention focused, at least for now, on racial justice, a new initiative wants to put more people of color in newsroom leadership by helping them start their own media companies. Kimberly Adams speaks with Erika Alexander, co-founder and chief creative officer of Color Farm Media. Many will know her as the character Maxine Shaw from the ’90s sitcom “Living Single.” Color Farm Media is partnering with Google to run a boot camp for entrepreneurs who want to launch digital news sta...

Outsourcing election cybersecurity to volunteers

It’s Election Day in a half-dozen states, and another opportunity for election officials to sort out just how to run elections in a pandemic. As roughly 8,000 jurisdictions prepare for November, one concern is cybersecurity and if their systems can withstand any kind of hacking. Some of these folks don’t have the strongest security background, so they need training on setting up things like secure passwords and two-factor authentication. To help, the University of Chicago created a program c...

A new hotline helps gamers with harassment and bullying

Video games have become a huge release for lots of people, especially the many who are entering their sixth month of some sort of coronavirus lockdown. Sales of video games are up 26% from a year ago. But online harassment has been a problem in gaming for years, and in June, dozens of women accused streamers — people who broadcast their gaming on Twitch or YouTube — of sexual harassment, abuse or assault. Now, a longtime video game activist is launching a hotline for people who play games or...

Online learning requires internet access and a device — for teachers, too

There are new tools to help with online learning, but a recent report from Common Sense Media and Boston Consulting Group found that at least 15 million students in the United States lack either a device or internet access, and 9 million kids lack both. Those disparities are worse in rural communities and Black, Latinx and Native American households. Hundreds of thousands of K-12 teachers also lack hardware or internet access. Molly spoke with Elizabeth Gettelman Galicia, vice president for...

Robots are getting personal during the pandemic

This week on “Marketplace Tech,” we’re reporting on the innovations that will help us transition to a post-pandemic future. One of those innovations has been waiting in the wings for a long time: robots. Robots can do jobs that are too dangerous for humans or just make life a little easier while offering companionship during quarantine. Molly Wood speaks with Ayanna Howard, a roboticist and professor at Georgia Tech. She says the pandemic has been a boost for robotics of all types.